I'm celebrating a year with my first guinea pig and thought you guys might enjoy her story.

Believe it or not I haven't always loved Lucy. I almost gave her away three times thinking I didn't have the ability or patience to help her. Now, a year later, I can't imagine life without her.

Free snake food. I had been perusing craigslist, and as an animal lover I had to click. The add simply said one year old female guinea pig, free for snake food. I was a Bunny person, I'd never owned a guinea pig, but I had plenty of hay and an extra cage so I decided I could give her a temporary home until I pawned her off on one of my pre-vet or vet tech classmates.

When my boyfriend and I arrived to pick up the little orange pig I was horrified at what I saw. Lucy was being kept in a cage the size of a shoebox, so tiny she couldn't turn around. She had no bedding, water, or food. She was emaciated, her spine prominent and her now chubby sides deflated and hollow. There was a wound on her back and the look in her eyes was one of extreme terror.

The owner explained that he had bought her to feed to his 8ft long snake. She'd been in the tank for a few days but the snake wouldn't eat her. From the wound on her back I concluded that she had probably fought the serpent off. I gently placed the terrified pig in a fleece lined carrier. She shot to the back of it and burrowed under the blanket. I cried the whole way home...

Once I got Lucy into the cage she ran for a hidey. For the next day or two I hardly saw her. She'd come out to eat or drink, but only if things were perfectly quiet and I wasn't in the room. Then the drinking started....

I'd never seen anything like it. Lucy would stand at the water bottle and drink it dry, all the while flooding her cage with urine. After going through two bottles in a row like this I began to fear her kidneys had been injured during her period of starvation, or she had developed diabetes. Looking for answers I stumbled across guinealynx! Along with the vet, this site was instrumental in Lucy's recovery.

The vet gave Lucy a clean bill of health besides her low weight, and my shy piggy was no longer hiding in my presence. For the first time since the vet visit I tried to touch her. I fed her a piece of pepper and slowly reached to rub behind her ear. Big mistake! Lucy was fast and strong now. She grabbed my hand hard and didn't let go until I ripped it away. She left a deep bloody mark on my hand.

Tears sprang my eyes. I selfishly thought, I saved you. How could you bite me when I'm the only reason you're still alive? I quickly closed the cage door, Lucy ran to the corner of her cage and locked eyes with me, she clicked her teeth together angrily. She had survived because she was a fighter, and Lucy wasn't afraid to fight me.

Pretty impressive for that little bit of orange spitfire to fight off an 8 foot snake. If she managed to get a good bite or two in, then that may have been enough. Some snakes can be head shy, too, and will withdraw in fear from anything that comes at them from that direction.

Lucky little pig has the look of a prizefighter there: very confident and self-assured. And she has certainly earned the right to feel that way.